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Editorial Reviews

Prepare to be blown away with 10 out-of-this-world adventures from the golden age of Hollywood in The Classic Sci-Fi Ultimate Collection: Volumes 1& 2! Loaded with innovative special effects and captivating storylines, these timeless tales will take you into the strange and shocking worlds of Tarantula, The Mole People, The Incredible Shrinking Man, The Monolith Monsters, Monster on the Campus, Dr. Cyclops, Cult of the Cobra, The Land Unknown, The Deadly Mantis and The Leech Woman. You can run and you can hide, but you won't want to miss a minute of the fun in this amazing sci-fi showcase!

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

Universal has finally seen the folly of their ways in selling this set exclusively via Best Buy and is re-releasing both volumes 1 & 2 in one set. Included are all ten films in the original sets, but once again there will be no extra features - just the films themselves and some trailers. If you love the great campy horror films of the 1950's you'll love this set. The following is from the press release on the new combined set:

Tarantula (1955, 81 min.)An experiment to create a growth formula that could end starvation evolves into a nightmare when a contaminated spider grows gargantuan - with an appetite to match!

The Mole People (1956, 78 min.)Deep below the surface of the earth, three scientists stumble upon a tyrannical tribe of albinos who have enslaved a mutant - and dangerous - race of mole people.

The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957, 81 min.)After encountering a mysterious radioactive mist, an ordinary businessman finds his physical size diminishing as his ordinary household becomes a terrifying trap of doom. By the way, who keeps a cat in the house with a six inch tall husband around?

The Monolith Monsters (1957, 76 min.)In a desperate race against time and nature, a geologist and a scientist must find a way to stop effects of killer outer-space rocks that are literally petrifying people with fear!

Monster on the Campus (1958, 76 min)Terror sweeps a college campus after the discovery of a prehistoric fish that turns animals and humans that come into contact with it into bloodthirsty monsters.

Dr. Cyclops (1940, 78 min) in COLOR!A brilliant but deranged physicist shrinks his enemies to one-fifth of their normal size when they begin to challenge his unconventional experiments.Read more ›

Although I bought both these sets at Best Buy when they were released, I'm delighted that folks who may have missed out on them can now own these great films on DVD.

To be honest, only a couple of the films might be considered bona-fide sci-fi classics, which occasionally rise above the limitations of typcial fifties "B" movie material. THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN is one the most thought-provoking and existential films from the period. And THE MONOLITH MONSTERS rises above its low budget with some simple yet impressive effects, and better-than-average performances.

TARANTULA and THE DEADLY MANTIS are entertaining parts of the wave of Giant Killer Bug movies that ruled the screens in the 1950's. MANTIS sports one of the more ridiculously memorable critters of the era. CULT OF THE COBRA and THE LAND UNKNOWN incorporate the then-popular sub-genre of "jungle thrills" into their scripts.

The real oddity of this collection is DR. CYLCOPS. It's the only film here made in color, and was actually made in the forties. But the miniaturization effects are first-rate, and are every bit on-par with those of SHRINKING MAN, made some 15 years later.

Rounding out the collection are THE MOLE PEOPLE, THE LEECH WOMAN, and MONSTER ON THE CAMPUS. . .all fine examples of drive-in shocks on a limited budget. I personally find these three to be the least of the bunch, but there's really not a bad film in the whole collection.

The only extras here are theatrical trailers for most of the films, leading to my only minor complaint: The trailer for SHRINKING MAN is not the famous one narrated by Orson Wells, but a short teaser which really reveals nothing of the film itself. I've seen the Wells trailer on t.v.Read more ›

In the early days of talkie films, many of the major studios carved out their own niches: MGM did the spectacular movies and the musicals, Warner Brothers did the social issue and gangster movies and Universal did the monster movies. By the 1950s, Frankenstein and company were generally played out, so Universal switched from the supernatural to the "scientific" monsters. These films were for the most part B-movie fare and generally fun, but also formulaic enough to merit parody, most notably on Mystery Science Theater 3000. In fact, at least three of the ten movies in The Classic Sci-Fi Ultimate Collection were redone on MST3K.

These ten movies fit into four categories, each with two or three films: the big, the small, the lost and the shifty. The "big" films deal with oversized monsters: Tarantula, The Monolith Monsters and The Deadly Mantis. Tarantula, one of three in the set directed by Jack Arnold (of Creature of the Black Lagoon fame) deals with an oversized arachnid that terrorizes a small town. Guns can't stop it, dynamite can't stop it: is the world doomed? B movie stalwart John Agar leads the cast, while Clint Eastwood appears briefly in one of his earliest roles (His first role? A cameo in Revenge of the Creature (not part of this set)). The Deadly Mantis (parodied on MST3K) features a thawed out giant insect that heads south from the Arctic. The Monolith Monster feature the monster that is simultaneously the most interesting and the most boring: giant rocks that tear up the landscape and multiply when wet.

The "small" films are the closest to classics in the bunch. Dr.Read more ›